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Re: [Phys-l] [math-learn] The Moore Method (was "Richard Hake: On the Mazur Article")



When I first began teaching laboratory, I stood at the door of the lab and required that students answer 2 out of 3 questions before being admitted. If they couldn't, I sent them to the library to prepare the lab that they should have, before coming. As the years went by, I required students to turn in questions (factual, interpretive, or evaluative) and on some days there were specific assignments that had to be prepared for class. If they didn't have them, they were not admitted.
I elaborated on this procedure as one of the presenters at a PEPTYC meeting (Two Summer sessions of two weeks and a shortened session at each Physics Section meeting, where participants had to tell what they had done the previous semester in light of what they learned in the program. One fellow, Marty Corley, reported that he carried it one step forward. Students were given an assignment for the next class. He asked if there were any questions. There were none and so he left. Next class there were lots of questions.

John Hubisz


Richard Hake wrote:

In response to Jerry Becker's (2007) post "Richard Hake: On the Mazur
Article" to the "mathed-news" and "ncsm-members" lists, a subscriber
wrote to Becker and me privately:

"Professor Mazur's comment about assigning the reading first and then
discussing it in the next class reminded me of an anecdote when I was
researching Gordon Pask's Conversation Theory. . . . . .
.[<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Pask <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Pask>]. . . . A student of
Pask's was now a professor and for his class he assigned the weekly
reading. When the students came to class he asked if they had done
the reading. Then he asked if there were any questions. The students
sat there quietly, so the professor said 'well then, class
dismissed.' Supposedly the class became more interactive the next
meeting."

According to the account by Paul Halmos (1988, pages 255-265) this
method of initiating a class was one of the hallmarks of the the
"Moore Method" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore_method <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore_method>>, pioneered
by the topologist R.L. Moore
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.L._Moore <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.L._Moore>> at the University of Texas.


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